The United States and Japan will step up their defence cooperation to deal with the threat from nuclear-armed North Korea as tensions in East Asia remain high, officials from the two allies said on Thursday.

Backlash over spying claims grows

Indonesia has threatened to withdraw cooperation with Australia on various policy fronts, including in the area of people smuggling, amid a growing backlash over revelations of spying out of the Australian embassy in Jakarta.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa on Monday labelled Australia's response to complaints that the embassy was used to collect data and eavesdrop on Indonesian interests as unacceptable.

Dr Natalegawa said Indonesia was joining Germany and Brazil in co-sponsoring a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly that calls for measures to end violations of the right to privacy, including in digital communications and to force countries to respect their obligations within the framework of international human rights laws.

The spying row started off between the US and its European allies but last week erupted in Asia after Fairfax newspapers reported there was a network of US intelligence facilities in the region.

The papers, amplifying an earlier story by German magazine Der Spiegel, said Australian missions were also involved in the US-led spying network.

On Sunday, the Guardian newspaper reported Australia and the US mounted a joint surveillance operation on Indonesia during the 2007 UN climate change conference in Bali, citing a document from US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden.

"Enough is enough," Dr Natalegawa, who had sought an explanation from his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop during a meeting in Perth on Friday, told reporters in Jakarta on Monday.

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"The recent revelations will have a potentially damaging impact in terms of the trust and confidence between countries concerned," he said.

Dr Natalegawa said that in the absence of any "explicit assurances" that the spying would stop, various agreements between Canberra and Jakarta on a range of policies would be reviewed.

"We have to review our co-operation, our information exchange with the two countries concerned, both the US and Australia, because if they did gather information out of the official framework, the question is what is the use of the official framework," he said.

"This is something we need to carefully think about and we have explained to them that we cannot accept this kind of thing and we demand that it wont be repeated in the future.

"One of them obviously is the agreement to exchange information, exchange even intelligence information, in fact, to address the issue of people smuggling ... to disrupt terrorism, etc. Now these information flows have been rather effective, have been rather important. We need to look at that."

Dr Natalegawa said he was not satisfied by explanations given by Ms Bishop, or Australia's ambassador to Indonesia Greg Moriarty who was summoned to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry on Friday.

"The kind of response that we've been obtaining or receiving is the more generic response that neither the government of Australia nor the United States is able to confirm or deny the practices reported in the various media," Dr Natalegawa said.

Last week, Dr Natalegawa also called in the US embassy's charge d'affaires to protest over reports that the Americans had conducted electronic surveillance and phone-tapping from their Jakarta embassy.

It's been claimed that Australian surveillance collection facilities are in place at embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Beijing and Dili, and high commissions in Kuala Lumpur and Port Moresby.

The top secret Defence Signals Directorate operates the listening posts at embassies without the knowledge of most Australian diplomats, according to documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden and statements from a former Australian intelligence officer.

The documents revealed the existence of a signals intelligence collection program - codenamed STATEROOM - conducted from sites at US embassies and consulates and from the diplomatic missions of other intelligence partners including Australia, Britain and Canada.